Chimborazo

Chimborazo is the highest mountain in Ecuador. The equatorial bulge means that the summit of Chimborazo is the closest you can be to the sun while on earth, closer even than Mount Everest! Chimborazo can be a challenging climb depending on the conditons, if it hasn't snowed recently, the ridge to the summit can actually be low grade ice climbing! Fortunately there had been a lot of snow, so we thought we'de do some exploring. We stayed at the refugio, a measely 16,400 ft.

The mountain was covered in clouds until just before sunset. Here the fog rolls away to reveal a brief glimpse of sunlight. We've discovered that the mountains tend to be cloudy from mid-morning until late evening. Nights and early morning are often crystal clear.

Our expersions reveal our moods perfetly. Alex: excitement. Michelle: near hysterical anticipation.
We started the climb with the four other guided groups at 12:15, walking up a snow covered moraine, then winding our way through large rock terraces and around these peculiar ice tables.

At 18,000ft a funny thing happened, Alex started walking like he was intoxicated: alitude sickness was starting to show. We had just gained the promient ridge, which leads to the summit. Michelle by the way, was kicking butt at this altitude, virtually pulling me up the hill. Not liking the idea of trying to descend all the way from the summit, being out of balance and exhausted, we turned around. Two hours later we were followed by the other guided groups due to bad avalanche conditions above.

We were back to refugio by 4:30 am and Alex tried to sleep off the searing headache. No luck. He didn't start to feel better until we were driving toward Riobamba.

Michelle on the descent back to the trailhead. She was so full of energy that she actually carried Alex on her back. Descending from the refugio to the road you pass through a graveyard with memorials to climbers who have died on Chimborazo. Pretty sombering. We were back in Riobamba by lunch time and on a bus to Quito within an hour. Only in Ecuador can you get to and from 20,000ft peaks so easily.

One last look at the mountains (because we haven't figured out how to erase photos).